The main advantage of a combined plant (chiller and ice plant in one unit) is that both systems use one common evaporative condenser. During 100 % production of each plant there is no advantage. However once the flake ice plant has stopped (because the ice storage is full or there is no use for flake ice during the cold season), the chiller runs with an evaporative condenser which has double the capacity than necessary. This brings the discharge pressure down, lowers the power consumption and increases the efficiency. Over the period of one year power savings of up to 30 % can be achieved. Furthermore it increases the life expectancy of the compressors thus reducing the costs for spare parts.

Furthermore the production costs of combined plants are lower, so that savings of approx. 5 % can be achieved (compared to separate units). Not to mention the savings in transportation, installation and commissioning.

Combined plants have less space requirements and need less support structures.

For pure Readymix application (where 50 % and more of the water added is flake ice) we recommend to use only cold water plants with an outlet temperature of 4 °C together with the suitable flake ice plants. If flake ice is used in the mixing process the positive effect of 1 °C water compared to 4 °C water is less significant.